What are Foots and what can you do with them?
Throughout our ExPress® process, there are many different things happening to the soybeans. While in the oil press, a small amount of meal particles ( sometimes called solids or foots) remain in the oil after pressing. The solids are mixed in the oil until it reaches an oil clarification system, usually a decanter or a screening tank.
During oil clarification, the solids are separated from the oil as best as possible, leaving the oil at least 98% solids free. Because of the nature of the removed solids, some of the gums from the oil adhere to them and make it extremely hard to mechanically separate.
If the oily foots are mixed with the full fat meal before the oil press, it causes issues within the machine as the press was not designed to process the additional oil that the foots are bound to. This also creates more foots in the fresh oil that is being pressed and can lead to inefficiencies in the pressing operation.
We recommend mixing the foots that are removed during decanting or screening into the meal stream after the oil press. This allows the oil press to operate as it was designed to while also adding back a mixture that still has nutritionally superior benefits from the ExPress® process. The small amount of foots added back in doesn’t affect the final meal in a discernable way.
If you have any questions or want more information regarding solids, please reach out to our engineering team.
